Why Iran Hawks Confuse Pre-emption and Prevention

Duss and Korb point out–and it’s worth putting in capital letters–that the invasion of Iraq was not a PRE-EMPTIVE but a PREVENTIVE war, as would be aerial attacks against Iran. Iraq was not threatening to go to war against the U.S., nor is Iran threatening to go war against the United States. And preventive wars have never been sanctioned under any international agreement. Anyone but the perpetrator calls them international acts of agression.

This confusion of terminology has been with us at least since 2002 when Bush described a preventive war policy as “pre-emption.” Because pre-emption has some connection to self-defense, however tenuous and strained, it has been more useful for its advocates to describe an unprovoked invasion or attack this way than to call it what it is. To speak of “pre-emption” assumes that there is an imminent threat, but the arguments for the invasion of Iraq and for attacking Iran always referred to a possible future threat that might one day emerge. Pre-emptive warfare is still extremely difficult to justify and the burden of proof would still be on the side that initiates hostilities that it had just cause to use force, but nothing justifies preventive war.

Judis later refers to “people who don’t know the difference between a preventive war and a pre-emptive war,” which lets advocates of preventive war against Iran off a little too easily. This isn’t simply a matter of misunderstanding these concepts. It’s not the case that preventive war advocates don’t know the difference between the two. I am guessing that they understand the differences but expect their audience not to know them. To that end, they deliberately blur the differences and conflate the two concepts to make military action against Iran seem more palatable. If that seems too cynical or uncharitable, don’t forget that this is exactly what Iraq war hawks were doing in 2002-03.

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10 Responses to Why Iran Hawks Confuse Pre-emption and Prevention

The Japanese attack on the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor was either pre-emptive, preventative or both, depending how it is analyzed.

On one hand, there was a view that sinking the entire fleet could cause the United States to pull back to its natural North American sphere, preventing a looming conflict. Ordinarily, the fleet wintered in San Diego, so this act of preventive war could halt aggressive American military expansion and competition with Japan in the Far East.

On the other, given that Japan was in the strongest position it was likely to have, and waiting would only see its situation deteriorate in what was sure to involve war anyway, it was better to be pre-emptive and start the war when its was most advantageous and offering the best chance for success.

From the popular American perspective, though, it was “a day that will live in infamy,” an unprovoked attack.

Notwithstanding, that the United States leadership also viewed war as inevitable, given its own competing and opposing interests, and was looking for a provocation along the arc of tightening sanctions, which the Pearl Harbor attack certainly served to accomplish.

All of this is to say, that there’s little practical difference in these distinctions other than semantic obfuscation, when you are looking for any excuse to wage war. Even Just War Theory just becomes more grist for the warmaking mill.

” To that end, they deliberately blur the differences and conflate the two concepts . . .”

This is the new gift from the merritocracy — and I am of a mind that meritocracy describes those engaged in the rhetorical tour de force abuse of reason we have been experiencing for quite some time. The only difference is that it is finnaly consuming those who created and proffer it as sound logic and reeason.

This goes back to 1947, when Gen. Kenney, who commanded SAC, called for preventive war against the USSR and bombed. After that, the US public discourse always managed to confuse the two concepts accidentally on purpose. I do believe that for most folk, the two now mean the same thing, much in the way that the fine and useful word “disinterested” now denotes a lack of interest.

While we are deploring misuse of terminology, let’s take a moment to consider the distinction between destructive action and war. Israel destroyed a nuclear reactor in Syria in 2007. This may have been pre-emptive, and was almost certainly preventive, but it was not war. Similarly, it is possible to advocate attacking Iran without advocating war with Iran. In fact, there is considerable evidence that the US has attacked Iran’s nuclear establishment, with the Stuxnet program. If so, the US was taking preventive action, but it could hardly be said to be waging preventive war.

Mr Berryhill, I think I agree with your overall point but an inner pedant requires that I mention that the Israeli raid in ’07 was not an isolated hostile act between two countries that had previously been at peace. Better, I think, to regard it as an action within a long continuous war. Which, Mr Canning, is also how to think of the Stuxnet attack on Iran.

The alternative is to consider that — for example — the U.S.’s economic actions against Iran constitute a ‘blockade’ which is a just cause for one nation to take up arms against another.

I feel better making that distinction without much of a difference. Thank you.